


Devilish Delights, Wicked Ends

by TheGubraithianFire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation, glossy evil, hogwarts mob bosses!, ice princesses + volatile wildcards + insane people oh my!, operatic teen melodrama is My Brand, ship everyone with everyone and no one with no one, some of the most extra monologues you will ever see!, stupid gryffindor prince and horrible slytherin princess, we told you this was melodrama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 06:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14711099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGubraithianFire/pseuds/TheGubraithianFire
Summary: Albus Potter, arrogant, amoral mafia don, isprobablygoing to steal the answers to the nastiest, most exhausting Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test known to wizard-kind.Sybil Vaisey, self-righteous, scheming rival mafia heiress, isdefinitelygoing to stop him.





	1. Luck

Yuletide at Hogwarts was supposed to be lovely. Lovely decorations, lovely people, lovely weather, lovely food, lovely atmosphere, lovely memories. Lovely, lovely, lovely, _lovely_. 

It was what Sybil Vaisey, at least, had written to her mother when she gently refused the latter’s invitation to come home for the holiday season. Sybil didn’t usually put much thought into her epistolary pursuits, but when her mother was involved, she pulled out all the stops.

_Wouldn’t it be lovely, Mamma, if I got to spend the last Yuletide of my Hogwarts career actually at Hogwarts? Pretty soon I’ll be back with you and Daddy anyway, so I can’t see what difference being at home for just two weeks in the bleak depths of winter could make. I have included, as you doubtless have noticed, my presents to you and Daddy, as well as a tin of some baked goods Antigone wants me to send to you as her thanks for not telling her parents about this past August. Damian sends his love, and promises that he will write daily starting in the New Year. You can judge for yourself whether to believe him. Your skin looks lovely, by the way. I hope that when I’m your age, Dr. Cornelius of Cornelius’ Premiere Parisian Liver-Spot Remover is still in business._

_Your favourite child,  
Sybil._

Mamma had not taken it well.

Her response arrived at Hogwarts via the family tawny owl, Odovacar, two days before Christmas. Sybil was astounded that the poor creature had even made it all the way from the other end of the island carrying four feet of parchment, surely made heavier by the denseness of the handwriting. It certainly felt that way to her when she extricated Odo from the mess of string and held it in her hands. 

Caspar Moran, Sybil’s boyfriend, whom she mentioned in her letters home as little as possible, gaped as she unrolled the response. “Is she kidding?”

Just in the process of unrolling it, Sybil managed to spill an entire jug of chocolate milk and upset a platter of scrambled eggs. “Nope.” She made a mad, flapping gesture at the other end of the table. “Damian will get one too. Not that he’ll do anything about it.”

“But you will,” said Caspar. “You know, I don’t remember you making such an effort with me over the summer.”

“You’re only my boyfriend, Caspar. This is my mum we’re talking about.” After a cursory glance, she rolled up all four feet of parchment again and stowed it on her lap. “I always put in extra effort to indulge my mother.”

“Why bother?” 

“All daughters are supposed to rile their mothers up once in a while. I’d be doing her and our entire wizarding culture a disservice if I didn’t.”

Caspar finished the last of his toast and pushed away his empty plate. He was often referred to as _dreamy,_ which was not an inaccurate adjective, just an incomplete one. He was all golden-boy, old-world charm, with eyes the colour and warmth of crystallized honey, a straight aquiline nose, and a mouth always curled in a smile. But his personality was markedly more Slytherin-appropriate than ‘dreamy’ might have led one to infer, as his Beater position on the Quidditch team implied. Sybil had been attracted more to Caspar’s looks than that at-times ruthless behaviour when first they got together, but after five months, she had settled into the relationship rather nicely.

“This has been Words of Wisdom with Sybil Vaisey, crackpot philosopher and bad influence on witches all over Scotland since–”

She scoffed and tossed her long, dark brown hair over her shoulder, knowing that he would be momentarily distracted by the way it caught the cloudy half-light of today’s Great Hall ceiling. “ _Me_ a bad influence? Hah. I’m the most honourable, law-abiding Slytherin this school has ever seen.”

This was not quite true. Like some of her classmates and all of her family, Sybil would be lying if she said she believed in staying on the straight and narrow with all her heart. _Most honourable, law-abiding Slytherin in Hogwarts_ was a stretch. More accurate was _most honourable, law-abiding Vaisey in Hogwarts for a few years_ and both she and her boyfriend were acutely aware of it.

“I have to give your mother credit, though,” Caspar said, quickly smoothing over any awkwardness involving the not-mention of the rest of Sybil’s family. “Four feet of parchment is much classier than a Howler. No bright red smoking envelope, no banshee shrieking.”

“Yeah, well, give a Vaisey a nice roaring fire, a good record, and sparkling conversation, and we’re utterly content. No need for attention.”

A playful smile appeared on Caspar’s lips. “Speaking of records, Sybil–”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With a great clatter of silverware, she pushed away her own plate and tried to disentangle herself from the table and bench with more than a little panic. “I’ve got a big day ahead of me, so I’ll just be off. Bye, Caspar!”

“Yeah, I figured.” He watched her twist about with that same smile. “I’ve got a quiet day myself. _I’ve_ already obtained a Christmas present for my significant other, see. But you, babe, you feel free to go on your emergency Hogsmeade dash to the one place in Scotland that sells–”

“Hats! I will. I’ve been waiting for Hogsmeade to get a haberdashery for ages, and it’s here! My grandmother will be so pleased. She likes hats, you see. Hah!” She finally got all of her limbs out from the no-man’s-land between the bench and the table and scooted backwards, as if physically repelled by his steady gaze. “Bye again, Caspar!”

“I didn’t know Hogsmeade had a haberdashery!” 

But Sybil was gone before she ever heard him.

 

Today, as it happened, was technically not a Hogwarts-sanctioned Hogsmeade trip. Sybil managed it with perhaps more skill than the school administration would have been comfortable with, had it known such trips were the norm in this segment of its student body. Not wanting to hog all of her good luck, she had invited her friends to come along to make a day of it, but Antigone McCullough was busy with her boyfriend Head Boy Scorpius Malfoy (a match made in ironic/awful name heaven, as Slytherin House gossip was fond of saying) and Ophelia Urquhart was doing the responsible thing and filling out Ministry job applications. Sybil was alone, but that was all right.

As it was, Hogsmeade was not yet home to a haberdashery, not even to a small-time amateur milliner. Grandmother would have to wait another few decades before she would ever get an upscale hat from her only granddaughter. What Hogsmeade did have was, miraculously, a record store. It took Sybil twenty minutes of haggling before she finally managed to procure her Christmas gift for Caspar: a complete set of original Weird Sisters records, spanning twenty years, four break-ups, and three reunion albums. 

It was cold on High Street when she exited Persimmon and Quick’s with her purchase levitating in front of her. Much too cold for her to have a reasonable expectation of getting back to the castle alive. Her teeth chattering, she dashed down the cobblestone road to Hogsmeade’s second most beloved establishment, the Three Broomsticks, which was rather quiet when she entered just after noon. Inside the pub were mostly elderly folk and staff gossiping in the far corners, waiting for the lunch rush. Sybil made her order at the bar and sat down at a table next to the window. Hogsmeade was not as picturesque this season as it would have been if there was snow, but she settled down to a brief people-watching spell, swaddled in roaring warmth and slightly sleepy hospitality.

And then cocooned in confusion, as she noticed Albus Potter and Finlay Thackeray approaching the Three Broomsticks’ door.

The Gryffindor boss and his strongman reached the bar just as a twenty-something waiter wearing a red-and-green-striped bell-laden hat brought Sybil her hot chocolate, but she hardly noticed the beverage. Albus and Thackeray seemed not to have noticed her, but she twisted semi-eagerly around in her chair to follow their progress. For the second time in as many hours, she nearly overturned a vessel of chocolate drink, but a chance spotting of these two boys outside of school without permission was worth the risk, even if it was hot chocolate that was vulnerable.

Only belatedly did Sybil realise that _their_ spotting _her_ outside of school without permission was also a massively fraught risk itself.

“Fuck all.” She got out of her seat, keeping her back to the dining room and bar, and gulped as much chocolate as she could. It was for all intents and purposes still boiling, and she hissed “ _Fuck all_ ” under her breath as her tongue blistered and the roof of her mouth screamed in protest. 

“Is that you, Sybil?”

 _Fuck all_.

She turned around and first saw Thackeray out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting down at a table a few rows over, closer to the middle of the dining hall. She reckoned the vantage point would have been his choice, but had a feeling, once she settled on the sight of Albus Potter standing five feet from her, that it was the boss who had recognised her first.

“Isn’t this funny,” she said, much cooler than she was with people as a rule. Then again, coolness towards Albus Potter was a pretty good rule to have, no matter one’s identity. It worked for a Vaisey even better than it did for normal students. “Good to see you, Albus. Is that Finlay over there?”

Albus looked past her and at her table, on which was piled the set of records she had just purchased. “Last minute shopping?”

“I had to pick up an order today.” Which was not a complete lie. “What about you guys? Shopping too?”

“No, just a day out and about. Enjoying the season.”

Sybil shuddered, and immediately clamped down on her twitching before anything else could happen. “Nowhere like Hogsmeade during the holidays.”

Albus smiled blandly. “Exactly. Were you leaving?”

She felt Thackeray’s blunt glare focus more intensely on her, but she kept her cool as well as she knew how. And indeed, she knew quite well. “Mm hmm. I’ve been out here long enough.

His smile grew from bland to almost… perish the thought, inviting. Kindly. Not that Albus Potter was incapable of being kind, exactly. He was quite adept at that act, as Sybil understood. That was what made him Hogwarts’ favourite wayward son and most feared criminal: his capacity to seem like no one at all. 

Unless you were looking.

“You don’t have to be afraid of us, Sybil. We’re not going to rat on you coming to get Caspar’s gift. We’re not completely heartless.” He glanced backward at his enforcer, and then flicked those unfairly deep burned-emerald eyes on hers. She bristled under their pressure, knowing exactly why, and felt almost powerless against it. She also wondered how he knew the gift was for Caspar. 

“Well, I’m not,” he amended after a moment. “But Finlay’s got a heart somewhere behind the strong and silent exterior, I’m sure, so nothing to worry about with him either. Don’t let us ruin your day. In fact–” here he brightened, and for a minute she was struck by his resemblance to the tabloid photographs of his older brother and the history textbook replications of his father–that genial energy, that self-aware and self-deprecating charm “–why don’t you join us? Get a refill.”

Sybil swallowed. On the one hand, sharing a table with Albus Potter and Finlay Thackeray was probably the craziest story she would have at the end of these two weeks of break, and it wouldn’t even need alcohol for embellishment. On the other hand, she was Sybil Vaisey, and that surname meant something to select people. She wasn’t supposed to mix with Albus Potter–not just because he was a Potter, but also because he was _this_ particular one. 

Then again, years ago she had made the choice that there would be no more reason to assign _that_ kind of meaning to the Vaisey surname. Julian and Roman, her two older brothers, had had their fun when they were at Hogwarts, but it was ultimately silly and fleeting fun. And it was dangerous, too. Absolutely not the sort of thing she needed hanging around her head for her time here and afterwards, or around that of her little brother, Damian. 

Do not look a free hot chocolate in the mouth.

Or a gangster in the eye.

Thackeray’s eyes, for his part, were wide with disbelief and narrow at the same time with suspicion as Albus carried Sybil’s package over to their table. She didn’t sit down until Albus did, and didn’t speak until Albus explained everything to his friend. “Christmas spirit, Finlay,” he said bracingly. “It’s all around you. Embrace it.”

“Hi, Finlay.”

“Sybil.”

So he knew her first name. That was… she hesitated to call it a start, but it was certainly… something.

It was also clear that the three of them together did not spirited conversation make. The only words any of them spoke in the next minute were Albus’, as he hailed another waiter and ordered another hot chocolate for the girl.

Thackeray coughed once. Sybil imagined it was supposed to be one of those pointed coughs, but its intended target did not react. And if Albus felt awkward about sitting in complete silence with a near-stranger who could have been his last threat to power at his lunch table, he didn’t show it. 

It occurred to her only then that perhaps they expected her to make the first move.

How unfair.

“So.” She coughed as well. Not because she was nervous. She had nothing to fear, exactly, from these two wizards. Nothing yet. “All of your shopping’s taken care of? Unlike me, obviously.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been done since last week. Catalogues are the way to go.”

Thackeray nodded and crossed his arms. Even though he was slouching in his chair, it still looked like a threatening gesture.

“So you don’t believe in the whole making-gifts-is-more-thoughtful-than-buying-them conceit.”

“I make the cards myself, if that counts,” Albus chuckled. “I’m no good at crafts. I wouldn’t want to ruin the holiday for the family with giving them, I dunno, parchment coin pouches or something.”

 _Yeah, I guess you need to spend all your contraband-smuggling money somehow._ “I’m sure they’re proud of you no matter what you do.”

Albus grinned, but it didn’t crinkle the corners of his eyes. Sybil rather thought it improved his demeanor anyway. How could someone with that face and that name become… this? She caught herself before she could lament his fall. It had led to an incredible material and abstract rise, the likes of which Hogwarts had not seen in decades. There were whispers in Slytherin that Potter’s control of the school echoed His reign, in times made dark by things like, oh, murder, Petrification, monsters, et cetera. She didn’t believe it for a second, but the parallels were unsettling even so.

“How’s your family?”

Sybil blinked at Thackeray. His voice was deeper than his boss’, which she supposed was suitable, considering his job in the great machine of Albus’ crime empire. “Oh, they’re good. Really good. I’m sure they’d be happier if I was with them, but that would hardly be any fun for me.”

“Hogwarts at Christmas is great.” Thackeray nodded to punctuate the statement.

“Isn’t it? And my mum thinks I’d rather go home and baste the turkey and do N.E.W.T. practice than be here.”

Albus barked his laughter, and even Thackeray seemed to smirk a little at the idea. “I don’t envy you. Isn’t it a bit early for N.E.W.T. worrying?”

“Never too early to start thinking about the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test,” she recited play-grimly. “Julian gave me a book of practice written sections for my birthday. In April.”

“That’s… rough.”

Finally, the waiter brought over their drinks: hot chocolate for Sybil, coffee for Thackeray, and tea for Albus. Sybil hesitated once again, fearing for a split second that Albus bought off the Three Broomsticks staff and was going to poison her, but shook that idea out of her head because, of course, it was absurd. She even expected, once the waiter was gone, that they would all drink to Christmas or new friends or the future or N.E.W.T. practice tests, but it didn’t happen. Thackeray swigged down his coffee before Sybil could even experimentally sniff at her drink, and Albus followed suit with nothing more than a curious gaze over the top of his mug.

Sybil smirked. She hoped the whipped cream this waiter had added to her hot chocolate hadn’t smeared onto her nose as she sipped. “Don’t worry, you’ll be in the thick of it soon enough. In a week, it’ll be the New Year, and then it’ll be the new term… last term of our school career, you know? And then the N.E.W.T., and Merlin knows what else. A bit scary when you start thinking about it.”

“I’m not worried about N.E.W.T.s,” said Albus, almost with a mischievous lilt. Thackeray shared the teeniest of smirks with him before he continued. “I think worrying about them makes it worse for everyone.”

“Doesn’t preparation make for a better test-taking experience?”

“Personal preference. I can see why some would start scrambling early, but it’s not for me.”

Sybil, more than intrigued, took another sip of her chocolate, and forgot even to be dainty about the melting whipped cream. “Are you a good test-taker? Because a lot of times, it’s about knowing the mechanics of the t–”

“You could say that, yeah.”

She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes as she peered over the top of her mug as well. “You’re lucky that way. Plenty of people kill themselves trying to get a good enough score to follow their dreams or satisfy their family or whatever.”

She could have sworn that he was smiling at her, smiling a Cheshire cat smile, as Antigone would have said. “If you say so.”

“You do have uncanny good luck, though. Let’s not pretend otherwise,” she pressed on. “Most people never would have been able to carry your whole thing on for… how long’s it been? Two years?”

Thackeray nodded.

Somehow that inspired her to babble on, but she wasn’t sure why. “Well, okay, two years. Still pretty incredible, and I think we can agree I know a bit more than most people about what it takes to… do what you guys do. I am genuinely awed by your longevity. And your luck.”

Thackeray was not appreciative of her awe. He glowered over his coffee and muttered, “You don’t know the half of it.”

But it wasn’t the strongman’s reaction she paid any mind to; the honour of her attention fell, of course, on Albus. His Cheshire cat smile was gone as suddenly and as randomly as it had come, replaced with a swift, quelling glare in Thackeray’s direction. Again, Sybil felt unsettled, and she thought back to the whispered parallels she’d heard for years. It’d serve the Potter family right if their son ended up some sort of sociopathic Dark wizard after all. 

“It’s not about luck, Sybil. It rarely is.” He finished his tea and put down his mug like it was a judge’s gavel of dismissal. “There’s a saying, I think it comes from Machiavelli: God does not want to do everything. Don’t put your faith in luck, or fate, or what have you. It won’t get you anywhere on its own.” 

She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Profound shit. I’ll keep it in mind.” 

She knew it was impertinent to get up without being dismissed outright, but Albus had clearly given her a bit of leeway just by inviting her to join them. And besides (she had to remind herself for the umpteenth time) she didn’t operate under his organization’s rules. Never had, never would. So she gulped down the rest of her hot chocolate and pushed out her chair. “And now I really should get going and let you guys have your Hogsmeade holiday fun. Thanks for the drink.”

Thackeray, to her surprise, bid her goodbye. “Happy Christmas, Sybil.”

Albus watched her levitate Caspar’s gift with narrowed eyes. “And Happy New Year too. New term, N.E.W.T.s, and all.”

“Right back at you guys,” Sybil said brightly in return. And with one last somewhat-smile for the mob lynchpins, she finally dashed out of the Three Broomsticks with a series of thoughts replaying over and over in her head.

Firstly: They were up to something.

Secondly: Since _they_ was _Albus Potter and Finlay Thackeray, something_ was _definitely illegal and probably diabolical_.

Thirdly: Albus Potter had invited _her_ , Sybil Vaisey, to have a drink. And paid for it. And gave her _unsolicited, condescending advice._

Three facts did not anything concrete make, but that wasn’t a problem yet. It was, after all, just a matter of time. And luck.


	2. Egress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things bigger than one party, and there are some basic principles greater than one witch.

If nothing else, Antigone McCullough would have thought that Slytherin’s private New Year’s Eve party would distract her friend from her brand new obsession with Albus Potter’s illegal antics. But no dice: Sybil had always been good company at parties, but tonight, at the loudest party the dungeons had seen since, well, last New Year’s, she was disappointingly ordinary. And sober. There she was, off to the side, absentmindedly rubbing away the goosebumps on her bare arm, not even tapping her feet to the sounds of playful shrieks and whispered conversation and, somewhere in the middle of it all, the Weird Sisters’ first album.

Sybil seemed to brighten only a little when she noticed a short girl, all round cheeks and ash blonde hair, bobbing across the room and balancing a shot glass on her open palm. She opened her mouth to speak, but Antigone knew what she was going to comment on and headed her off before she could get in a word edgewise.

“Babe, I know what _this_ shot and _all of these_ drinks represent on a moral level and everything, but no–one– _cares_.”

“I am not touching anything they’ve bought from Potter and you can’t make me.”

Antigone frowned, and then downed the shot anyway.

Sybil felt a rush of affection for her ruddy-cheeked friend despite herself. “That’s my girl. Now, several things. Firstly, have you seen Ophelia tonight, because I haven’t for, like, an hour. And secondly, you should not be here indulging me, because Scorpius’ll try to off himself again if you stay away from him any longer. So thirdly, you should go and leave me to amuse myself.”

Antigone giggled at the idea that her boyfriend would ever try to off himself. He was a dramatic drunk, but not a morbid one. Usually. And besides, the Head Boy would never descend to such a pedestrian level of behaviour in the public eye. “Considerate of you, but I think he can wait a little before I ride to the rescue. And Ophelia can handle herself, she doesn’t need a nanny.”

“That’s what you said on Halloween.”

“That was a totally different holiday.”

Sybil didn’t see much difference between this party and the last one. Admittedly, Halloween was a holiday that lent itself to more debauchery than others, and certainly a Slytherin New Year’s was practically pristine in comparison to a Hufflepuff Halloween. But it didn’t really matter.

“Look,” she said, adroitly sidestepping an unsteady fourth-year who was only now finding out the risks inherent in partying with legal adults, “you go find your boyfriend, I’ll find mine, and Ophelia can do whatever the hell she does. Deal?”

Antigone scrunched up her face, which was red with the beginnings of intoxication. “She’s a lush, not a slag.”

“I know! Now go save Scorpius!”

Sybil had to push her friend back into the fray before she actually got into the rhythm of moving again. This left the only sober girl in Slytherin (she might have been more specific and thought _only sober seventh-year in Slytherin_ , but she noticed a second-year nursing a bottle of the premium high-class wine on her own in a far corner of the dungeon) all by herself in the melee.

It was fitting, really. She was the only one who stood between the virtuous Slytherin House and the evil and doom and rule-breaking that seeped out from Gryffindor Tower. It would be a dangerous journey, but like all the great heroes in literature and legend, she would have to go it alone, to save the people she loved, the innocents who deserved their lives. There are some things bigger than one party, and there are some basic principles greater than one witch.

“You could be a nun.”

Awoken from her heroic daydreaming, Sybil whipped around. Caspar was leaning against the wall, his lips curled as if ready to drink her in instead of the butterbeer bottle with which he fiddled.

“Comparatively speaking,” he amended hurriedly. “Everyone else is in tiny, sparkly little numbers, and you’re not.”

Sybil stuck her tongue out at him. “I like leaving certain things to the imagination, not that it’s your business. And also, I am fully aware that you took an entire minute to arrange yourself to look so effortlessly cool, and I’m not impressed.” She cut off a particularly amorous couple from their route to the far side of the dungeon and, more likely, the tunnels to the dormitories as she edged closer to him. “And I know you’re only standing here to make sure Mordecai doesn’t scratch your precious records,” she added.

Indeed, they were now two feet away from Slytherin’s one working phonograph. No one was sure where it came from or who had found it, but it was the House’s most precious possession and thus under constant guard. Tonight guard duty fell to Mordecai Kramer, another of the seventh-years, who was characteristically hammered already.

“They’re precious because you got them for me,” Caspar said. He wrapped his arm around her, as if to shield her from the tawdriness of the scene beyond them. Of course, Sybil smelled alcohol on him anyway, so it wasn’t much of a shield. “Risked life and limb and everything.”

“And Albus Potter.”

Caspar’s nostrils flared. “So you’ve said.”

“He’s up to something.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Mordecai shouldn’t have got the contraband from him.”

“What contraband? The drinks?”

“This is a school. Alcoholic beverages are illegal contraband.”

“Since when do you care about rules?”

“Since we’ve had to use Potter to break them.”

Caspar, like Antigone and Ophelia and every other friend of theirs, was tired of the week-old rhetoric about Potter and his gang. He hated them and what they represented and what they did as much as the next bloke, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend a party with his sober girlfriend being upset about how one could only smuggle conspicuous bottles of various illegal-for-minors substances using his resources, and of course paying his more-than-sizable fee.

He trailed his hand down her bare arm and kissed the top of her head. “It’s here so you can enjoy it. So we can give the year a grand send-off and welcome the one to come. So we can have fun. Remember what that is?”

She furrowed her brow and pulled away. This time she didn’t avoid Caspar’s broken butterbeer bottle. Wincing, she said, “It’s just not _fun_ anymore. And I can’t get him out of my head. Disturbing, I know, but I _swear_ , he was telling me something… maybe he was inviting me to join h–”

“We’ve been through this, Sybil.”

Caspar, more often than not, filled the role of the exasperated boyfriend to the ostensibly half-mad girl he adored despite her silly tendencies. Sybil knew that, but she didn’t like it, especially when it meant that he and others, like Antigone and Ophelia, wherever she was, dismissed her when she was completely in the right.

“Sure.” She glanced around at the formerly austere Slytherin common room once more (Ophelia remained out of sight), and felt her heart sink at what had happened to it in so little time. “Look, I’m not feeling up to this whole thing. I think I’ll go to my room and barricade myself against horny fifth-years and wait it out. You go have your fun. Not too much fun, obviously, but–yeah, I’d rather leave.”

Caspar dashed forward, abandoning any pretense at immobile poise. Deep down, Sybil was gratified at his brief moment of panic, but she kept her face suitably downcast anyway.

“You don’t have to leave,” he said. “I… I might have an idea better than you spending New Year’s Eve keeping horny fifth-years out of your dorm.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s a high-risk endeavor, but I’m sure it will prove quite rewarding.”

“What about your fun here?”

“There are other kinds of fun.”

“You are incredibly needy, darling. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Didn’t you know? I am quite shameless when it comes down to it.”

Sybil knew, and she rather liked it.

 

It was long after the seventh-years’ curfew by the time Sybil and Caspar made their departure from the Slytherin common room. They reached as far as the Great Hall without having run into a single professor, ghost, or other type of sentry, and pressed on. Sybil had to keep shushing her boyfriend as they proceeded, but there came a point where it wasn’t enough to placate him.

He stopped in his tracks in the middle of some first floor corridor. “This is as good a place as any.”

She was less certain, but she didn’t want to push their luck any further, so she resolved to acquiesce.

Not, of course, without a fight.

“As good a place as any for what?”

He began stumbling in the dark to his left, toward the empty classroom nearest him. Sybil stayed rooted where she was and followed his progress with a grin.

“For _what_ , Caspar?”

He reached the threshold and then twisted the doorknob. The door swung open without a sound. Caspar threw a mischievous smile over his shoulder and sauntered in like he owned the place. “Bet you won’t be able to guess,” he called.

She tiptoed up the corridor until she could see straight into the room. Her boyfriend, a gilt ghost in the airy darkness, was sitting on an empty desk at the front of the room, his legs swinging off the top of it, his arms open, prepared to embrace and be embraced. Sybil, however, was not ready to give in quite yet. There was still a bad taste in her mouth from the week past and the party raging in the dungeons below her, and there was a peculiar, perhaps wicked pleasure she got from playing this way when there were so many more dangerous games going on all the time.

“Should I assume it has something to do with pinning me against that desk?”

“Let’s not leap to any conclusions.”

Nothing stopped Sybil from leaping to conclusions, especially things like _fact_ and _reality_ , but she shrugged off her reluctance and what was left of her inhibitions and entered the classroom with an exuberance she only partly felt. Caspar was lovely, as adolescent boyfriends went, but he was one of a type, and tonight Sybil could only muster up so much affection for him.

Caspar was grinning by the time she reached him. “I take back what I said about you looking like a nun.”

“Knew you would.”

There was still something missing from this scene, as if it were running on gears instead of emotions, on formulas instead of hormones, but Sybil kept willing herself into it, and wiggled in between Caspar’s legs and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. A heartbeat passed between them, their only marker of time, before Sybil moved forward. There wasn’t much distance separating her mouth from his, but it felt like an age before they met, and then they were kissing.

Caspar’s lips were familiar by now, even if his facility of them was clumsy tonight. It began coolly, the gears getting into groove before settling into the little technological miracle of something as extraordinary as a kiss. She made distinctly unladylike noises deep in her throat when Caspar trailed his lips along her jaw, and heat spun off her body, making them both dizzy.

And then it stopped.

“Well, that was fun.”

Caspar twisted himself out of the tangle of limbs before Sybil even knew what had happened. He leapt off the desk and approached the wall in front of them, where a blackboard would have been if this classroom were used by anyone but more-than-slightly naughty couples sneaking a secret snog.

Sybil coughed. “I… are you really so easily amused?”

Caspar’s back was to her, but she could see that he had withdrawn something from his trouser pocket (it really had been a wand in his pocket, apparently) and he was tapping the wall.

“So easily amused that one quick snog is enough?” Sybil elaborated. “One quick snog when we’re alone in an abandoned classroom in the middle of the last night of the year is enough?”

“False,” he said without missing a beat. “On several accounts. One, I never said one quick snog was enough. And two, we’re not alone, so keep your voice down if you know what’s good for you.”

“And you do?” she asked incredulously. “Do I have to remind you whose idea this… this immoral excursion was? Or who picked this room? What are you even doing over there?” She wandered over to where he was, still reeling after the kiss.

Caspar smirked at the idea of Sybil going on an immoral excursion. He was quite sure that she had never seriously entertained the idea of having morals in the first place, even so that she would be able to rebel against them when she wanted to. Which was essentially always.

She repeated, a bit more quietly than before, “What _are_ you doing?” For it wasn’t a wand in his hand, as she had thought, but rather, something that looked like a small potato sack. From inside, Caspar took out what Sybil could only describe as a massive pair of binoculars, much larger than she expected from the size of the pouch, with great bellows that seemed to extend and contract like those of an accordion–like, she belatedly realised, a very, very old prototype of Omnioculars.

“I’m trying to make this ridiculous ancient contraption work so that you can see what Potter, Thackeray, and Weasley are up to.”

“Beg pardon?”

He glanced up and twirled his wand like a baton. All he needed now was a thin mustache to twirl in unison. “A little birdie told me that the triumvirate will be meeting with Russell Travers in fifteen minutes in the room on the other side of this wall. Potter and his lackeys are coming early to scout it out. In the next five minutes, actually. You wanted to know what they’re doing. Well, here we are.”

Sybil’s dark bluish-black eyeballs almost fell out of her skull. She actually staggered backwards, almost tripping over a leg of the desk, and only managed to right herself by repeating the words in her head:

_My boyfriend is going to spy on Albus Potter for me._

Caspar may have been one of a type, but he was certainly the best of his type. How could she possibly doubt him, after he had planned–premeditated, as the phrase went–this excursion just for her? Although, to be fair, she already felt a bit miffed. Couldn’t he have _warned_ her about this? She could have brought along something made in this century to assist in the spying.

Now she lowered her voice to an actual whisper. “Are those–”

“From Scorpius? Yeah. Don’t tell him or Antigone what we used it for.” Caspar continued fiddling with the ancient Omniocular-like thing, whose bellows were coated with dust. They both stifled sneezes as he expanded and contracted it, and once the least-lodged dust had flown off, he brought the viewfinders to his eyes. “Actually, don’t tell them we have it.”

Sybil’s eyes sparkled from pride. This boyfriend of hers actually _stole_ from his Head People friends for her for the best of causes! How many other witches could say that?

She tried to peer into the lenses, but she found nothing in their depths, not even his eyes watching her. “Is it working?”

“Viewfinder does.” He rotated so that he was facing the correct stretch of wall. “And…” Caspar’s fingers ran over various buttons along the sides until finally he gave a self-satisfied sigh. “And there we go. Perfect. You take these, will you?”

Sybil did, and was astounded by the weight of the thing. She was careful not to touch any of the buttons or alter the setting of the lenses as she looked through the wall to the next room. That classroom resembled this one, with its rows of student desks, the stretch of blackboard at the far side, cabinets here and there, a few posters on the right wall with windows on the right.

“It’s too bad we won’t be able to hear anything,” she said after a moment. “Unless you have a thing of Extendable Ears on you too?”

“As it happens, I do.” Caspar pulled out the fleshy strings, also from the potato sack pouch, and draped one end over Sybil’s ear, as if it were a strange headband, and placed the other on the stone wall, to which it stuck as if glued. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to find Weasley products in Slytherin,” he added. He moved backward, plopped himself unceremoniously on the teacher’s desk behind them, and kicked forward the accompanying chair so that Sybil would be able to rest if they were to wait here for so long.

An ache already rising in her arms, Sybil backed herself down carefully onto the chair and found herself correcting Caspar without a thought. “You were looking in the wrong place. Roman always swore by this one bloke, a Spaniard named Martín or something, he’s in Hufflepuff and he’s a bloody savant–does all sorts of things to Extendable Ears, modifying them and things like that. It’s like magic–well, obviously it… ugh, you know what I mean. Really stunning workmanship, and–”

“Yeah, because I’d know to go to a Spanish Hufflepuff named Martín if I wanted to get specially modified eavesdropping devices,” Caspar shot back.

Caspar’s gripes had no effect on her, but she was very aware that what she was doing here resembled her brothers’ old activities more than she would have liked in any other circumstances. It wasn’t as if it was her fault that her brothers had done what they’d done back in the day, or that they had shared some of their knowledge in passing to their favourite and only sister. “No, of course not,” she said airily. “File that away for future ref–oh, they’re here.”

Indeed they were, the triumvirate, as Caspar had said. Heading up the party was Albus, of course, looking much more like the devilish mob boss than he had in the Three Broomsticks a week ago, his jaw set, his eyes moving as if fueled by sickly, dark green hellfire. Behind him was his cousin and _consigliere_ (Julian liked using the real terms, as they were) Rose, her dark red hair bobbing up and down, clearly styled for the Gryffindor party they were not at right now. Thackeray was the last to come in, and he shut and locked the door behind him, leaving the three of them alone. But thanks to Caspar’s ministrations, they were not precisely left to themselves.

Albus walked up all the way to the windows; Thackeray remained at the door, and Rose was at the teacher’s desk that was the twin of the one in this room. She was pacing a little, not so much distraught as upset, Sybil reckoned. Of course, she couldn’t expound on her musings to Caspar behind her. She considered beckoning him closer to share, but decided against it. There wasn’t time to waste adjusting for an extra person.

The preparations Caspar had made came into full use a moment after she dismissed the thought of including him, as Rose began to speak. Or rather, she seemed to be spitting in Thackeray’s direction. “You did manage to tell him to come, didn’t you? Or did you fuck that up too?”

Sound through these Ears was not as crisp as Sybil remembered from even the usual stock models, and she wondered for the first time where Caspar had found these things. It really did sound like she had her ear pressed against a door, instead of as if she was in there with everyone else.

“I do what I’m told, unlike some of us in this room,” Thackeray shot back.

“Shut up, Finlay, I prefer my musclemen to not have mouths.”

“You want a slave, find one. Until then, you’ll have to settle for me.”

“I can make a slave of you, _believe_ me.”

Albus’ voice cut through the suddenly thick air like a dagger. Low but sharp, even through Caspar’s stolen Ears, and it seemed to hit a pitch that approached _reverberating from everywhere and nowhere_. “Forgive and forget, Rose.”

He just did not run out of pithy, trite sayings, did he?

Rose seemed to share her impatience. “Forgive _him_? Again? Don’t make me laugh, Albus, and don’t make me call you a bloody conceited hypocrite before the night’s even begun.”

“I meant forgive yourself,” Albus said, clearly amused despite his irritation. “This is just what happens when you arrange things without consulting others. It hurts, I get it, but it happens. I forgive you and by midnight, I’ll have forgotten there was a mistake in the first place. Do the same and you’ll thank me by lunch.”

Rose’s hysteria was a sight to behold, and probably a sound, too. “Oh, I’m sorry, have I not sufficiently licked your boots lately, Albus? Have I not kissed enough arse that now I’m expected to _thank_ you for _forgiving_ me? How fucking magnanimous of you.”

“Easy there, Rosie,” said Thackeray drily, but with great zeal, “before I have to bring out the leash.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Sybil heard Albus’ footsteps before she trained the viewfinder on his approach. He only needed a few steps before he was between his _consigliere_ and his strongman. “Rose, when people are kind, you’re supposed to thank them. Finn, you’re good, but not that good.” He paused, though it was clearly meant for dramatic purposes. “Both of you fucked up. On your own, that’d be fine. We could fix it without a sweat. But together, your separate smaller fuck-ups become one just-larger-than-medium fuck-up, and that’s when I get worried. That’s when I start debating whether this thing works out or not.”

Rose snapped, “Spare me the speech, cousin dear. I’ll leave right now. I’ll leave right now and then you two can run your precious little _empire_ and do all the inane shit you always do, whether I say to or not–”

“And watch you come back on your knees, begging for your old position back? Fat chance.” Thackeray paused and then corrected himself as Rose continued to fume, practically giving off smoke, “Actually, never mind. I’d love to see that. Weasley begging.”

“Heavy on the bitch imagery tonight, aren’t we?”

“It’s accurate. And I hear someone.”

Sybil flinched on the other side of the wall, fearing for a split-second that somehow the Gryffindors would actually hear her flinch, or hear Caspar’s restless movements, but any miniscule noise they might have made was drowned out by the scrambling, as the three of them arranged themselves to prepare for the arrival of their guest. Albus went back to the windows, Rose steadied herself and did breathing exercises that seemed more suited for a pregnant woman, and Thackeray rooted himself more firmly behind the door.

“Remember, kids,” Albus’ whisper chilled her even through the Ear, “smiles all around for our guest.”

Sybil actually heard the door to the other classroom open without the use of the stolen Ears–it squeaked more with this arrival than it had for the triumvirate. As expected, it was sixth-year Ravenclaw Russell Travers, notorious black market dealer, at the threshold. He was a small, scraggly sort of bloke, but his appearance belied his influence. Though Albus and his ilk had appropriated the strictly illegal smuggling for themselves ages ago, Travers dealt in less overt material trade, and was not aligned specifically with Albus or anyone else. Or at least, he hadn’t been before he opened the door.

Travers was forced to make the first move, as Sybil was sure the others wanted him to, and asked, in a quavering, almost high-pitched tone, “Will you let me in or do you want to do this in the open?”

It was Albus’ call that seemed to jolt everyone into action. “Come on in. You know what to do.”

Travers, on his way to Albus at the window, whipped out his wand and in one fluid motion threw it to Rose, who almost let it slip through her fingers. Only Thackeray seemed to see this, based on the smirk Sybil saw, as Travers didn’t object as any sane wizard would to see his wand so close to being manhandled. Rose deposited the Ravenclaw’s wand on the desktop before edging forward towards the windows. Thackeray fell back to the desk after locking the door behind Travers. He was playing with the wand in his keeping, but once she was sure that he wasn’t moving, Sybil shifted the viewfinder to the three to her left.

Annoyingly, they had formed a triangular cluster, thereby blocking Sybil from being able to see what they were doing. Albus was in the corner, the farthest from the wall opposite, with Travers and Rose completing the formation. Her attempts to zoom in closer proved fruitless: she could see through walls, but not through Travers’ thin body.

It was clear from his body language, though, that he had brought them something about which they were bargaining or debating. She thought it must be a small object, whatever it was, to be able to be completely hidden by the shadows and their positioning, but she remembered how Caspar had hidden the ancient quasi-Omniocular without her being the wiser. It really could be anything at all.

“This is it?” Albus seemed… disappointed, though she had nothing to judge this on besides his voice, made even fainter with his whisper. “And you’re sure?”

Travers bobbed his head vigorously. “Only the best for my favourite colleagues.”

Rose snorted. “Colleague implies that everyone involved is on equal footing, wouldn’t you say, Albus?”

“I’d never consider myself your equal, Weasley,” replied Travers with the oily self-assurance of any salesman of ill repute. He clearly had practice with these dealings, and certainly with these particular people. But what were they dealing about? What did they want? “Besides, it’s useless to me. You lot do it for the art and the marks, but as long as I get my due, I’m fine.”

“You’ll be paid if this checks out.”

Travers bowed elaborately, including the motions for doffing one’s hat to another for good measure. He seemed to have no problem with waiting, but behind her, Sybil could _sense,_ she supposed, Caspar’s increasing restlessness. She wasn’t sure if this was just because she was always hyperaware of him and it was made worse in this situation, or if he literally was loud enough for her to hear in her new position, but she bit her lip and hoped the people on the other side of the wall would spell out what the fuck they were doing in the next few minutes.

“How’d you get hold of it anyway?” Thackeray called from his further vantage point.

“Same way anyone gets anything from outside Hogwarts. Networking, mate.”

“Innovative.”

“If it works, what’re you complaining about?”

“Assuming it does work out,” replied Thackeray. “Does it, Albus?”

Albus didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes, this’ll work out. You got it very quickly, Russell.”

Travers puffed up like quite the peacock. “You asked for it before second term started, so here we are. Now, Weasley, if you have no further objections–”

Sybil couldn’t see Rose’s expression, but she imagined, just on the basis of the earlier conversation, that she had many further objections. She didn’t voice them, though, perhaps heeding Albus’ admonishment about good behaviour in front of outsiders, and tossed what sounded like a full moneybag into what Sybil assumed was an outstretched hand.

Travers bowed again and pocketed the pouch without even counting what was in it. Not that Albus would have stiffed him, or would have let Rose do so, but it was a gesture of slippery good faith anyway that no one seemed to acknowledge. “So… are we done here?”

Albus cut through the space between Travers and Rose and strode right up to the door. Thackeray’s fawn-haired head swung around with him, but he made no move to open the door as he had before. “All we need is your discretion,” murmured the boss.

Of course, it went saying that Travers would rather be expelled than not be discreet about secret dealings with this Potter. So he grabbed his wand from the desk Thackeray had commandeered, shook hands with Albus, and stepped out into the hall without even checking if the coast was clear.

Thackeray was ready to follow suit in the seconds that elapsed as Travers’ quick footsteps faded away. “Nearly midnight.”

Rose, still at the windows, was unsatisfied. “Thirty-five Galleons for this?”

“What did you think he was going to get, Rose?” Albus asked, half-exasperated, half-condescending again. “He’s a sixth-year, for Merlin’s sake. He’s got more than a few limitations on what he can and can’t get, you know.”

_Never stopped you_ , Sybil thought.

“But if you’re going to all this trouble just so you can get out of actually st–”

Albus’ look didn’t allow Rose to complete her question. Deigning her with an answer was an insult to his clearly well thought out plans.

Rose sighed irritably and power-walked to the door. “Let’s get back to the party, then. It’s fucking cold down here and I need a drink.”

Thackeray snorted. “Assuming there’s still anything left. Did you see how–”

“ _Yeah_ ,” the cousins said in unison. Rose burst out laughing afterwards, though it sounded more like a witch’s cackle to the interloper behind the wall. “All the more reason to hurry up! There’s a total shitshow happening and we’re _missing_ it and I’m pretty sure if we don’t get a few drinks into Albus, we’ll never have any fun. Come on!”

No one agreed or disagreed with her, but they all filed out of the classroom in the same order they had entered it, with nary a glance backwards.

It was only when the door swung shut and their footsteps sounded beyond her own door that Sybil realised to what she had just borne witness. And though Caspar sidled behind her to relieve her of the old Omnioculars and the Extendable Ears, she could hardly bring herself to let them go. And when he urged her towards the door with gentle nudges, she couldn’t get up.

She knew what the triumvirate was planning, and she knew that she had to stop them no matter what.

There was no way that Albus Potter would ever succeed in stealing the answers to the N.E.W.T. on _her_ watch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone. It's so nice to be back.
> 
> DDWE has been my baby for 6 years now, and I'm so glad to be able to share it with you all here. Expect 34 more chapters of glossy evil and some of the darkest, most extra Hogwarts mob shenanigans you'll find anywhere.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Love,  
> Gubby


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